


Daughter of the King of the Mountains

by suchitis



Category: Mahabharata - Vyasa, Star Plus Mahabharat, Star Plus's Mahabharat, Starbharat
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-02
Updated: 2014-03-02
Packaged: 2018-01-14 07:36:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1258225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/suchitis/pseuds/suchitis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A short story about Vijaya and Sahadev. How she learns about his knowledge, him of her love, and both about the strange ways of the Time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Daughter of the King of the Mountains

**"Sahadeva had a son named Suhotra through his wife named Vijayā, who was the daughter of the king of the mountains"**  

 

My fingers went over the grooves of his hands. In the dim lighting everything just seemed to slow down as I traced the dark marks on his index and middle fingers caused by holding a pen for so many years, the smudge of ink on the side of his smallest finger, and the white mark on the palm of his left hand. He said that he got it from a thorn while picking roses for his mother Kunti. I wondered if he ever missed his own mother. Silence engulfed us as I continued my inspection. I could imagine the bemused look on Sahadev's face and I ran my fingers across his palm, bringing it to my lips and kissing the marks from years ago. He was never one to romance anyway.  
  
Ours was a union of minds, I'd like to think. Both of us were smarter than we were given credit for. He because he was the youngest in his family, and I simply for being a girl. The first time I saw him properly after he won my svayamvar, I saw thousands of secrets held in his eyes. Eyes that had a sparkle of laughter in them as I put the garland around his neck and looked down from his gaze. I still wonder if I was the only one to notice, or did everyone else simply ignore what this young Prince might know out of fear. After all ignorance is bliss. But I was never ignorant, I knew that our marriage was an merely a political alliance to keep ties with the Pandavas after Nakul declined the throne of Madra. Why else would I have to marry the cousin who I grew up with? I expected to enter a loveless marriage where I would always be second to his first wife from Panchal. But he surprised me the very first night, when he said that we should know the other person before consummating our marriage. I wondered if he'd said the same thing to Panchaali. He never told me, but the smile on his face after the thought entered my mind gave me enough of a hint. It wasn't until three months after the wedding that we entered that aspect of our relationship. And I'm all the more glad for it because during that time I stopped seeing Sahadev as my brother, and started seeing him in new light as my husband.  
  
Though he spent most of his time in Indraprastha, he came to Madra each year (except those when he was married to Draupadi) to meet his son and I. Tonight, was the first of many nights in the next month where I would be close to him. I liked to think of myself as a girl who isn't dependent on her husband. And yet, I still found myself missing the scent of parchment and ink that he brought to our room and when he left after our first year together I left open bottles of ink around the room to substitute for the lack of my husband. Now that he was near me I could sleep peacefully inhaling the smell that was so inherently _him_. Did Draupadi feel the same way about him? Did she appreciate him as much as I do?  
  
"You're doing it again."   
  
I looked away from him because I knew what he was referring to, he knew me too well. I felt his hand move out of mine and he placed his hand under my chin moving it to face him.  
  
"Vijaya, you're the Princess of Madra. The daughter of Dyutimat, mother of the veer Suhotra, and," he smiled as he said, "my wife. You need not feel insecure about anything or anyone."  
  
I looked away again as I replied, "That is easier said than done. I come from a land of mountains where we grow up more outdoors among sheep and horses than in the palace among people. I will never be as cultured or elegant as the princess of Panchal, who grew up in luxury and comfort and got the very best of education. Why, any sane person would be able to she her characters to be superior to mine. In her presence the only thing that could happen is my flaws becoming ever more clear."  
  
As the words left my mouth I knew that I shouldn't have gone down this path. Sahadev always used to get so angry and in the years I had gotten better at overcoming my insecurities, but there was something about tonight that brought it all back. I needed to know that I was loved if not more, at least as much. He must have known that because of instead of telling me to stop my vanity, my husband reached out for me and pulled me to his chest into an embrace. Stroking my hair he whispered stories from our past making me smile and laugh. He reminded me of the time as children when he and his brother Nakul had come to visit their maternal family, and we went to the stables to see the horses. Nakul had been called back to the palace for some reason and that left Sahadev and I who quickly challenged me to race him. While we were racing my horse stepped into a hole and fell, sending me flying to the ground. I knew that it wasn't ladylike, but I was only twelve and when Sahadev started laughing while sitting on his high horse I couldn't help mend my battered ego by pulling him down and hitting him. He continued laughing at my pathetic attempts to hurt him and suddenly I saw the humor in the situation. A while later an attendant came running to inform us that we were being called, and then proceeded to reprimand us for lying on the ground with grass in our hair and tears streaming down our faces. He would never have been in such a situation with the proper princess Panchaali.   
  
And there was the time I had gotten angry at my father for not letting me go for _shikar_  with Nakul and Sahadev, so in my anger I refused to eat for an entire day. By time the sun set I was seriously regretting my decision since I had never fasted out of anger and somehow that change in motivation was enough to make food seem more appealing than it usually was. As I moved to my balcony to distract my mind from my rumbling stomach I got the shock of my life to see Sahadev sitting on the stairs eating some berries, which he presumably got from the forest. When he saw me, he raised the cloth with the fruit towards me and I ran to him. We spent the entire night talking and eating berries. Needless to say the maids weren't happy when they saw us sleeping on the floor with mouths red with berry.  
  
He reminded me that what he shared with me he didn't share with anyone else and it made my love for him grow even more. That month became the best of my life as I would spend my days with my husband and son while they discussed matters of politics and night walking under the stars with the only man I had ever loved. It almost seemed too good to be true, but it wasn't until the night before he left that I understood. He knew something I didn't. That night I dreamt of two parrots flying above the leaves of the forest below when suddenly the air around them shifted and a hoard of birds flew out of the forest including the male of the couple leaving the female sitting at the top branch. Waking up from a cold sweat I confronted him. Until now I had never asked him what secrets he held in his heart, but the feeling of anxiety would not leave me.   
  
Finally he agreed once tears started flowing from my eyes and I begged him not to leave me. I saw the pain in his eyes as he took my hands in one of his putting the other over my eyes and I almost stopped him before it started. It was as if time had sped up and I saw flashes of a game of dice, the Pandavas in a forest, Sahadev working in a cow shed, men huddled over a map as if preparing for battle, Vasudev Krishna as the charioteer of Arjun, and a fierce war. I pulled his hands away before I had to see more. Suddenly it all made sense. Why he had been so kind to me, why he was busy teaching Suhotra everything about battle and politics. He had known that he was to be part of this war and now that I knew too, I didn't have the heart of stop him from leaving. It was his duty as a prince and as a brother to fight. I could feel his presence everywhere around me and I knew that that would never change. My mind was made. I would not stop him for I knew him and I was proud of the man he was. I looked back up at him and for the first time in our relationship it was Sahadev who looked nervous. I smiled and said softly, "This is why you always looked as if all the world's burden was on your shoulders and all its secrets in your heart? Thank you for sharing your burden with me. I know that you can't tell anyone, so I will not either. I love you and I'm letting you go fulfill your destiny, the reason you were born on this planet. Let that be a testament of my love for you."  
  
Except I never said any of those things, and yet I knew that he got all the messages I tried to send through my eyes. He pulled me into an embrace as he had done his first night this month and in the warmth of his arms and his intoxicating smell of ink and parchment I savored this moment because who knew if we would ever get this chance again.  
  
History may not remember me, but that is of no consequence because for me what was important was knowing that when called to war I could send my son away as the mother of a kshatriya should. When my husband came back a changed man after seeing his entire family perish I could console him for the losses he incurred and remind him all that he taught me about the Wheel of Time, Dharma, and the will of the Param-atma.   
  
When I met him after our time on earth, him as the Guru of Asuras and me as a denizen of the court of Indra, we smiled discretely for we knew that in our time together we did well. 

**Author's Note:**

> So I hoped you liked it! This is just a short thing I wrote in my spare time, and I might expand on it later. I'm not sure yet... tell me what you think down below =)
> 
> -Suchita


End file.
